Return to Fritzøe Skoger and Oslo (Feb 2- Feb 4)

The year started off pretty quiet - back to work and school and back to the usual routines.  It was a pretty hectic time and we didn't do any traveling through January.  We did attempt to head up to Liseberg Amusement Park but the kids spent the whole start of the trip fighting in the car so we turned around and came back.

Our weekends were filled with cleaning the house, birthday parties for the kids friends and sleep, so there wasn't much to blog about.  We did plan our next few trips - the first being Ireland in mid February.

As we were starting to near the start of Feb, our friend Thomas from Norway invited us back up to the cabin in Fritzøe Skoger for snow and a catch up.  We decided to head up on the 2nd of Feb after work.  It was a good chance to catch up with Thomas again and also to have our (possibly) last chance at snow before we headed home.  Malmö had been pretty bad for snow this winter so far.

The last few times we went to Norway we took the ferry from Strömstad, but since it only departed at 6pm there was no way we were going to be able to make it there after work - its about a 6 hour drive.  Instead this time we decided to drive our way around.  All up it was an 8hr drive and 600km.

We made it to the cabin by 11pm and were surprised by how much snow there was.  The last time we went up, we were able to clear the lake with a shovel and ice-skate, this time the snow was at least 5-6 foot deep, there was no way we could clear that.  Thomas had arrived about 5 hours before us and had cleared a trail to the cabin and to the toilets, so we were able to get our gear inside and make the beds.  We got the kids settled in, had a chat for a while and then went to sleep.

The next day we got a chance to see how deep the snow really was:

Path to the cabin

The well shed

The snow was over Kristine's head

The cabins were almost buried

We didn't have a huge snowfall when we were there, but there was a sprinkle

Getting into the firewood shed

Snow build up on the wood shed

Path down to the cars

The Norwegian equivalent of waves - a massive snow overhang

Some interesting icicles

The lake - it's there somewhere under all that snow

No-one liked my suggestion of sitting on the porch to check out the scenery

The road

Us

Because of the snow we had to cancel our plans of ice-fishing and ice-skating.  So the kids played with the toboggans and threw snowballs (and sat in the warm playing IPads) and we had a good relax and catch up with Thomas.

On Sunday we headed up to Oslo on our way home - I wanted to check out the Town Hall and the Vigelands Sculpture Park again.  It had been -15 degrees at Fritzøe Skoger, and while Oslo was a couple of degrees warmer there was a strong breeze that carried a wind chill that stung exposed skin.

Our main goal in Oslo was to find a souvenir badge that we'd missed the first time we'd visited.  We found it in one of souvenir shops near townhall and then went to check out the wooden murals.

We arrived at noon, just in time to hear the bells ringing:

Entrance to the Town Hall - including the Astrological Clock

Astrological Clock

I asked Kris to take photos of all of the wooden murals around the Town Hall that depicted the Nordic Saga - some of these were included in my first Oslo post, but I'll post the full set in a new post.

Our final stop before heading home was the Vigelands Sculpture Park.  As I mentioned in my first Oslo post, this park was the masterwork of Gustav Vigeland and included my second favorite Norwegian, the "Man Attacked by Babies" statue:

Man Attacked by Babies

As we learned on our last to Oslo (after a 600kr/$100 fine), studded tyres are not allowed in central Oslo, and we had our studded tyres.  Fortunately you can pay a 30kr/ $5 a day fee to get a permit, so we did that using the "Bil i Norge" (Car in Norway) app, which also let us set up our parking.  We were grateful for the studded tyres when we pulled into the carpark for the Vigeland park and found it to be an inch deep with ice.  Even with the studs we slipped a few times, I would have hated to do try without the ice tyres:

Our carpark

To get to the park we half walked, half skated across the ice:

Skating

Skating

I asked Kris to get a photo of every statue for me - which resulted in about 300 photos - I'll post them in a blog post of their own if anyone is interested.

Tom deciding to go for a walk with a naked man and his child

Acting out the statue

After finishing up at the park we headed back to Malmö, arriving about 10:30pm ready for work and school the next day.

Thanks Thomas for a great weekend.